


Ray's Life (So Far)

by orphan_account



Category: due South
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-30
Updated: 2009-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-14 11:04:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the ripe old age of forty, Ray Kowalski takes stock of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ray's Life (So Far)

**Author's Note:**

> This little character study is for my birthday twin [](http://sadiane.livejournal.com/profile)[**sadiane**](http://sadiane.livejournal.com/), although it's not meant as a birthday gift. (Because, wow, it'd be a late gift). Thanks for being such a great friend, S! The story is unbeta'd, which is probably obvious.

**Ray's Life (So Far)**

Ray Kowalski is forty years old. He lives in a large cabin in the southern Yukon, five miles away from the nearest town. Which is Tisdale, YT, population 1100. The town is positioned neatly on the Alaskan highway, and it's still pretty hard to find on a map.

He’s happy.

The happiness is unexpected. He spent a lot of years in a grey fog of misery and self-doubt, and for a long time he worried that he’d never find any peace. And he was sure he’d never find someone else who was willing to love him, even for a little while. But now he has love and peace both, and he's grateful for it.

He has two parents (both living), one ex-wife (now remarried) and one husband. No children, although lately Fraser’s been bringing home some books and pamphlets about adoption. Ray likes the idea.

He has two dogs (Queenie and Bullitt), an unnamed turtle that lives under a heat lamp in Fraser’s office, and a couple of goldfish he calls Mack and Knife.

He has an incomplete diploma from Westwood Community College of Chicago (28 credit hours, 1980-1981). He has a certificate that says he graduated from the Police Academy of Chicago (class of 1982), and another piece of paper that says he successfully passed his Detective-Lieutenant’s exam in 1988. He has a firearms license and certification as a marksman. He has a Canadian driver’s license, a healthcare card, and a passport stamped _Property of the Government of Canada_.

He’s lived in two countries, and made a home for himself in both. He grew up in a city of six million, and he's going to retire in a tiny town of 1100 people. He loves both places equally.

  
Apartments: thirteen.

He lived in most of those when he was a kid, and his parents kept having to move because of rent increases, or because the school district sucked. Ray stayed in a couple of different buildings before he and Stella got their condo in 1984, and then he moved from one depressing shithole to another after he and Stella broke up.

All told, he’s lived in most of the working-class neighborhoods in Chicago, and in a handful of the more upscale ones.

There’s not as much a difference between these places as he would’ve expected.

  
Houses: one. The place he shares with Fraser.

It’s a nice home, warm and comfy, and it’s just the right size for the two of them. The plumbing’s good (he did most of it himself) and there’s a big stone fireplace (which Fraser built), a nice kitchen, and a bathroom with both a shower _and_ a tub. Fraser wasn’t too sure about having both, and said something about "conspicuous luxury," but the first time Ray pulled Fraser down into a hot bath and washed his hair for him, Fraser saw the point of it.

They might have to move if Fraser’s ever transferred, or if they do decide that they want to raise a couple of kids. But for now the place is perfect. Just the way they want it.

  
Religion: it’s not really his thing.

He outgrew Catholicism, and he saw too much when he was undercover in Chicago to place much faith in God as a benevolent being. For a long time, the only thing that made sense to Ray was to have faith in chaos. But he and Fraser have talked it over throughout the years, and now he believes in the afterlife, although not necessarily heaven. He thinks that when people die, they go to a good place, but only when their work on earth is done.

Ray’s planning on hanging around a long, long time, because he’s got Fraser, and a life he likes, and a world that he’s just starting to understand.

Other than that? He doesn’t think about it much.

  
Health: he’s in good shape, no complaints.

He does have 12 scars. A deep scrap on his forehead near his hairline. Old gunshot wounds to his left shoulder, left forearm, chest, and belly. Two small white scars on his left knee from the surgery last spring. Four tiny scars and two big ones on his right leg, from when he was pushed through that plate glass window in the Klondike Hotel. Two broken bones (right leg and wrist) that healed well, and frostbite damage to his pinkie toe and the tip of his left index finger.

He doesn’t smoke or drink anymore, and most of the time he’s out patrolling with Fraser or training with the dogs or fixing up somebody’s roof. He’s active, he’s fit, and he’s gonna live til he’s a hundred. Easy.

  
Sex. Well.

He knows that the ol’ libido is supposed to taper off when middle age hits. Maybe it’s all the clean living he’s been doing lately, or because he’s happy, or because he’s in love, but whatever the reason, his sex life is better than it’s ever been.

Sex with Fraser is sometimes wild and rough, particularly when one of them has had a close call, but mostly it’s just good. Easy. Sweet. Fun. He and Fraser laugh a lot. It’s sex and friendship both, and Ray knows that neither of them ever had that before. So they enjoy it.

Ray’s still trying to find out if it’s possible for Fraser to touch him without sending little jolts of desire and joy zinging all throughout his whole body. He’d be more likely to believe it if he didn’t know that Fraser feels the same thing when Ray touches him.

Sex, in other words, is good.

  
So, that’s Ray Kowalski at forty. Just another scruffy guy who orders coffee at Bella’s diner in downtown Tisdale. Who gases up at Frank’s garage. Who helps out coaching the kid’s hockey team down at the municipal rink. He’s a person who smiles a lot, laughs sometimes, and dances with his husband when he likes the song playing on the radio.

He’s an ordinary, average, run-of-the-mill Canadian guy.

He could be anyone, really.

  
.the end.

 **ETA** : The lovely and amazing (and superfast) [](http://wihluta.livejournal.com/profile)[**wihluta**](http://wihluta.livejournal.com/) has already created a podfic of this story, which you can download [over here](http://wihluta.livejournal.com/185589.html).


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